The Browns are — actually Kevin Stefanski is — looking for an offensive coordinator, and if the head coach hires one of his buddies, which looks light it will happen, then the needed change the offense needs to undergo won’t happen.

As such, then, fans will be subjected to more of the same offensively in 2025, simply with another layer to it.

Sigh.

I can hardly wait.

And we’ve been waiting for a long time, for the Browns have not had a truly great offensive coordinator for nearly 40 years, since Lindy Infante in the 1986 and ‘87 seasons. That was so much fun to watch.

There is a great photo of the Browns sideline when they beat the Cincinnati Bengals 38-24 at Cleveland Stadium late in the 1987 season. It tells you all you need to know about Infante.

Browns linebacker Clay Matthews intercepted a Boomer Esiason pass deep in Cleveland territory and sped up the sideline in front of his team’s bench. He went for 40 yards until he ran out of gas, and then lateraled the ball to defensive tackle “Big Daddy” Carl Hairston, who was trailing the play. As Hairston — all 260 pounds of him, which was big for a lineman then — lumbered another 36 yards like a runaway freight train to complete the 76-yard return, the Browns players and coaches could seen in the photo laughing uproariously and hooting and hollering as they rooted him on. There, right in the middle of the scene was Infante, who was not joining in on the fun even in the least bit, but instead had his head down and was staring at his play chart already trying to determine what plays he could call for a possession starting deep in Cincinnati territory. Yes, that was Infante, who was always looking for any edge he could find.

Before Infante, you have to go back to the first three seasons of the Kardiac Kids from 1978-80 when head coach Sam Rutigliano and quarterbacks coach Jim Shofner put their heads together to run the offense. It was also a delight to see.

Rutigliano was once asked why the Browns passed so much.

“Because anything else would be incredibly boring,” he said wryly.

Writing that just now made me laugh.

Paul Brown was the first offensive coordinator the Browns ever had. The head coach, who was light years ahead of everyone else at the time when it came to offensive innovation, used to send in the plays via a messenger guard, which for about half of the 1950s was some Cleveland area native and Benedictine High School product by the name of Chuck Noll. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

Brown might have sent those plays into the game like they do today, via a radio transmission into the quarterback’s helmet, if the NFL had not banned that method when he started doing it — way back in 1953. Stuff like that is why Brown is called “The Father of Modern Football.”

In high school, there are no such electronic methods to relay play calls into the game. Instead, it is done by the quarterback looking to the sideline where three poster boards with a lot of different symbols and images on them. One of the boards has the okay calls on them while the other two are decoys.

Yikes! It’s a product of these coaches watching way too much TV football.

That fact makes some of the older coaches just shake their heads.

One of them was Jim France, the legendary head coach at Akron Manchester High School who set a state record with 401 wins in a 50-year career that ended with his retirement in April 2020. He was asked one time by some young people why he kept himself and his program “stuck” in the past by using the messenger guard system.

“Because I watched Paul Brown do it,” he said.

You could see their eyes begin to glaze over as they heard that.

The first Browns offensive coordinator not named Paul Brown was one of his greatest players, running back Dub Jones, who was hired by Blanton Collier when he was named head coach in 1963 after Brown’s unceremonious firing. He held the title of offensive coach — the tag of coordinator was not being used yet — for five of the best offensive seasons in club history, 1963-67.

That included the Browns’ stunning 27-0 victory over the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts in the 1964 NFL Championship Game. The Colts had one of the greatest defenses in league history. No one could solve it until Jones dared to challenge it by throwing over top of it with three Frank Ryan touchdown passes to wide receiver Gary Collins on post patterns.

Jones, incidentally, died last Nov. 2, just two months shy of his 100th birthday. He was the last of the Browns players from the 1940s.

Years — even decades — from now, you can rest assured that nobody is going to look back at Kevin Stefanski’s offenses or his coordinators with any fondness. 

Steve King